Quentin Tarantino has responded to police union calls for a boycott of his films by saying his critics “sound like bad guys in an 80s action movie”.
Tarantino was speaking on daytime talk show The View in the wake of an increasing furore triggered by remarks he made at a rally in support of the Rise Up October protest group against police brutality on 24 October.
Tarantino told Whoopi Goldberg and her fellow hosts on The View that “I’m not anti-police. I’m not a cop hater. They’re trying to vilify me as that.”
He went on to say: “As far as I’m concerned, Patrick Lynch, the head of [the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association of New York], is slandering me by calling me a cop hater because they can’t deal with the criticism that I’m giving.”
On being asked whether he would give his real name if he ever called 911, Tarantino responded by saying; “Some of them are talking about [how] they’ve got ‘surprises’ for me and they’re ‘going to do this, and they’re ‘going to do that’... They sound like bad guys in an 80s action movie.”
Tarantino repeated his denial that he was condemning all police. “I was talking about the issue we were talking about that that rally. Obviously I do not believe all cops are murderers – I didn’t say that, I didn’t imply that.”
Claiming police union leaders were trying to “shut my mouth”, Tarantino also rebutted suggestions that the violent content of his movies made his police brutality protest hypocritical. “When [Tamir Rice’s mother] was crying and the cops wouldn’t let her hold her son,” he said, “she wasn’t acting. That was real. I’ve never killed anybody.”
